eLearning Collaborative

We will be leaving for Switzerland tomorrow afternoon, and I havn't even finished packing! This is something that we have been talking about for weeks, but it finally seems real that we will be at CERN in just a few short days. Mr. Paradis must be panicking about getting everwhere on time as we have only recently found out that our schedule for transportation will be tight.

This is a picture of the LHC. It is 27 km in circumference and is buried over 50 m underground.

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After lunch we got a tour ATLAS which is another detector at CERN which happens to be 82 meters underground. The ambition of this project is to describe all forces as one force. Similar to CMS, it has the same basic layers, but the difference is the superconducting magnets in the muon detectors. The central magnet weighs 240 tons will be moved inside ATLAS, but currently, like CMS it is not put together. The magnets with the red tape are part of the outer muon detection system. Everything that can be seen in the pictures is part of the muon system, all the other parts are inside of ATLAS ready to go.

 There will be 30 million proton bunch crossings per second when the LHC is running and a million proton-proton collisions per second, of which 200 interesting ones are selected with superfast electronics and stored for further analysis. (Extra fact: 7TeV per beam) Inside of ATLAS electronics change the data that is collected into electrical signals and convert them into digital. Most of the cameras are ready and taking data... not actual data from collisions, but from cosmic rays. [Cosmic rays=stuff from outer space]. Underground there are still enough cosmic rays to get data and one of the things cosmic ray showers produce is muons, which is what much of the instrumentation on ATLAS is set to check out.

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Mars Rover

This morning (August 11), the group of people working on our project got the opportunity to go on a tour of JPL, the Jet Propulsion Lab affiliated with NASA. There were life sized models of different space exploration vehicles including the Mars rovers, which are still currently on mars. JPL is located here in Pasadena and is more like a mini community set up like a college campus. On average there are 5000 people working there a day. We got to see the control room where there were employees controlling the rovers on Mars as well as Cassini and Voyager. In a part of one of the buildings that we toured, there was a giant room full of sand that simulated the surface of Mars. There, workers had an exact replica of a Mars rover that they practiced controlling and observed. It was so amazing to again be in a place where you can smell the knowledge coming from all corners of the room. JPL is a place where things are being formulated, built, and carried out- real life experiments that are currently impacting astrophyics.

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Our trip in California ended with us learning how to retrieve data using Leopard. This program is specifically used to get Spitzer data. We may use this in the future to find available data and preform our own projects with it. After the group saved photometric data on the galaxy we observed as well as neighboring stars of (hopefully) steady brightness using APT (Astronomy Photometry Tool), we imported the .txt files that were created into excel. This is where we left off at Caltech, but out project doesn't end there. Those steps were just the beginning. Our purpose was to learn how to download the software and data, and learn how to use it in an environment where we could troubleshoot with people who knew what they were doing. Now that we are back in Rochester, we can take this project in many directions. One option would be to do light curves on the stars around the galaxy we did photometry on. We need to determine if they are of stable enough brightness to compare to the galaxy. We could also finishe the project so that we may determine how much the galaxy is varying throughout the time period when we observed it. There are many projects that are possible with the same set of data and I am excited to start doing some science!

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The research group is gathered with some art students during study block and everyone going is anxious to leave! I can't wait to actually be in transit... the suspense is killing me. I wonder what it will look like when we are there. Hopefully as sunny as it is here.

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Katherine Copic is an American physicist at CERN that my group and I got the pleasure to talk to at lunch. She works as a post doctoral research assistant for the Columbia University group. This group is split between CERN and Fermilab (the particle accelerator in the US). As an exprimentalist, she does physics analysis- looking at the readout electronics of the liquid argon calorimeter (on ATLAS), as well as having worked on the actual construction of ATLAS. She feels that it is important to recognise that there are still questions to answer and that science is not just memorizing things in the cirriculum. Research is a huge part of looking to further modern physics and the continuation of investigation about the things we still don't know about. Our more in depth knowledge of electrons really only goes back 110 years, and so in a hundred years we havn't discovered all there is to know. The thing that she finds most interesting is the three families of particles. Much like the periodic table, these particles are being placed together with similar properties, yet there aren't any rules to it yet. She is convinced there is some pattern and wants to research more of this possible pattern.

As to the question that I tackled earlier about whether a black hole will be produced at CERN which will destroy the earth, Kathy feels people should think about it as long as the portrayal of the "issue" is accurate. The article published in the New York Times made Wagner, a person who brought up the lawsuit, sound like he has more of a background in physics than he does in actuality. The couple we interviewed in the section following this live about 30 miles away from CERN. They are average everyday people and when asked about their opinion, they both said that they had heard of the controversy but weren't very worried, since the size of any black hole would be very tiny. This opinion highlights probably the most important point. If said micro black hole were to be created, it would be just that... micro. A black hole of that size wouldn't have enough gravity to eventually suck up the earth. This is a topic that i love to discuss. 

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Now that I finally have a blog up and running, I can tell about our
trip. I went into this trip knowing I was going to do research on the
AGN, NGC 40-51 and thats it. There wasn't much of an itinerary but it
makes sense now why this is so. Research is not strictly planned. It's
something you develop along the way. Along with the Spitzer project, we
visited JPL (Jet Propulsion Labortory). This half a day trip was very
exciting to all of us. We some the "Clean Room." This is where the
rovers are built that they send to mars. We saw Mission Control Room as
well as Spitzer's Mission Control Room. This whole trip was an exciting
adventure and I learned so much about the process of research. But I am
not looking forward to waking up around 4 in the morning to catch our
flight back.

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This was my first time doing this type of research and at first I was a little overwhelmed with processing data. But with my helpful partner, Sam, I was a pro in no time. Well, I understood it. One of my favorite steps when looking at these images taken from all sorts of different telescopes was the aperture slice function. You would have to line up the "X slice" and the "Y slice needed to be lined up in order to make accurate data. After a while, Becca and I started showing eachother our perfect aperture slice graphs in pride.
 

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As Leighann has shown in her blog the pictures begin to give you  a taste of how beautiful it is here.  Surrounded by mountains capped with snow, friendly people, clean air, and immaculate vistas of the valley we're in love with this place already....That's what's on the surface...more on that later.  We took an elevator ride 100 meters (approx. 300 feet) into the ground, walked through concrete tunnels (as Leighann said, it makes her think of "Angels and Demons,"), and up and down the steel scaffolding that surrounds the one of the most significant detectors on site here at the LHC:  The Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS).  Now as I recall from last summer  while listening to a member of the science team for CMS, this detector (more on that later) is the smallest, cheapest thing they could build and still do the job.  Small is a relative term...I'll bet my paycheck you've never seen a machine this big!!!

 CMS-Crew

Meghan-CMS: Meghan hanging out with CMS...She's blurry because she is shaking with awe...

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We met an amazing scientist on Sunday (OK, we met lots of great scientists), but this one really stands out in my mind.   Her name is Katherine Copic and she's on the ATLAS team.  She lives there in Geneva, which is simply one of the most beautiful places I have ever been, and she embodies exactly what science is to me...It's not just having a knowledge of how things work and a set of skills to help you apply those skills.  She can also explain it very well, isn't afraid to admit she doesn't know something, and loves to get her hands in there and get dirty.  I sometimes tell my students that science is a sport...it's something you do, not watch.  Some of my own students probably wonder why I have so many projects going on and this is why.  I love pushing my own knowledge beyond what I know and forcing myself to learn, and I love to get my hands dirty. (Look for her interview on LeighAnn's and Meghan's blogs.)

 Imagine that you like to work on cars, or cooking, or  taking stuff apart.  ATLAS, this amazingly large and complex machine is no different.  You grab a wrench, or something like that, and get in there and do it...it's no different.  Well, one small detail, you have 2000 BFF's (the other scientists on the team) to work with...

ATLAS: It's difficult to understand this picture since ATLAS is closed up, but we are looking at the end of the detector. If nothing else, you can see there is a lot going on there...Imagine millions and millions of wires...

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Saturday was our first day of science research. The first day, we learned about the topic we are going to be doing research with. We're doing research on a specific type of galaxy, called an active galaxy, or AGN for short (standing for active galactic nuclei). Before I go into details about what we did with the AGNs, I would like to explain breifly what an AGN is.

It seems normal to think that the total amount of light being emitted from a galaxy is equal to all the light being emitted from its' stars. And this is indeed the case for most galaxies, however; in AGN this is not the case. The bolometric lumonisty (the total amount of light given off from a galaxy) is higher than the total amount of light given off from the galaxy's stars. The reason for this, is an active supermassive black hole within center of the active galaxy. Material surrounding is orbiting the black hole until it is eventually pulled in closer and closer from the black hole's strong gravity field. The material is called an accretion disk. In this material's final stage of life before passing the event horizon (the point of no return in a black hole) it emits a final surge of energy and light, which accounts for the extra brightness not provided by the stars.

Active Galaxy: an example picture

With AGN, Spitzer Space Telescope is studying the clouds of dust that surround the accretion disk. A quick interjection about Spitzer...it's an infrared telescope that is actually in outerspace right now. Anyways, this dust absorbs radiation (light emission) from the accretion disk and then reradiates it in a cooler temperature. By studying this reradiation, Spitzer can find the distance from the accretion disk to the dust which could be an important role in fueling the supermassive black hole.

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Megan	LeighAnn
Nick	The Gang!
The Art Teacher   interview	Jeff and the Gang

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Our first day (or should I say first two days) was very busy, so lets start from the beginning. The group went to the airport at 3pm in Rochester. After an hour long flight, we arrived in Philly to catch our connecting flight. <<Eight hours later>> we landed in Zurich. On the train to Geneva, we all got to view the surrounding countryside as well as the mountains, which looked like something you would see on TV. At this point, we lost six or seven hours and had to catch sleep whenever possible, since after a crazy cabby navigating through busy traffic and getting to CERN, we were to tour CMS with the other students.

CMS [aka Compact Muon Solenoid] is one of the major experiments at CERN. It is a detector that serves to collect data from collisions that will occur between protons once the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) begins running. Around two thousand people designed CMS from over thirty different countries, and more people were involved in the assembly. Basically, CMS is shaped like a washer with a few different layers like an onion. The first layer is a silicon tracker that is made of silicon pixels and silicon strips. This tracker gives you a trajectory of each particle coming out of a collision in order to calculate the momentum of that particular particle. The next layers are called the electromagnetic calorimeter and hadronic calorimeter which basically measures energy of particles. Following those is the muon detector. CMS was given the name because of its awesome muon detection system as well as measurement system. This detector is huge and we all had to take an elevator about 100 meters underground. These following pictures show CMS. There is a central doughnut looking thing, and on both sides are the rest of the detector. They will be put together when the LHC is ready to run.

This huge piece of machinery when running will be producing A TON of data. There are lots of computers on site at CERN in the CMS building (which are cooled by the fans in one of the following pictures). Once online, there will potentially millions of collisions per second, which converts to plenty of terrabytes of information per second constantly. Most of the data will be sent to universtities worldwide for analysis.

In the previous paragraph, I mentioned cooling. I noticed when i walked into the building that they had liquid helium on hand which is used to cool machinery. Then I noticed that CMS has pipes that bring water through the electronics on the detector to keep it cool when it runs. If computers need to be kept cool by fans, it takes alot more to cool a huge machine such as CMS. Below is an attempt to photograph some of these pipes to show an example... (kind of dark but use your imagination)

Aside from all that complicated physics stuff here are some more pictures that show the complicated wiring (zillions of wires) as well as more perspectives of the detector.

Before signing off, this last picture is the power source for the electromagnets. Check it out... not your normal household voltage and current. Touch this and you will be barbecued.

More posted tomorrow.

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We've been in California for two days, and we're still adjusting to
the time difference. However, today was the first day we spent doing
science-like things. Yesterday was more of a day spent relaxing (after
our flights). We went to CalTech University, right here in Pasadena, to
learn about the project we will be working on with the Spitzer Space Program. Unfortunately, my
pictures are ...annoying...and are choosing to not upload tonight.
BUT!! I will be updating tomorrow with pictures and information on the
really cool astronomy topics we are learning about; as will the other
students/teachers on the trip. Be sure to check in tomorrow and weeks
to come to read our blog and see how California and our project is going.

=]

References

After we learned all about AGN, we downloaded software called APT off the Spitzer website to help us do our research over the next few days. After the software download, we were done with work for the day. We took a tour of the CalTech campus, which is where Spitzer Space Center is located. It is a very beautiful campus. CalTech is one of the few colleges that has more graduate students than undergrad students. It is mostly for sciences only. There are two buildings for humanity courses, and then mostly everything else are science related courses. I found it especially interesting that women have only been allowed to recieve an education from CalTech for a few couple of decades. It was a men only college for the longest time, and until recently women were not allowed to attend. To this day, it still has a majority of males, which also makes it unique from most colleges where women tend to dominate. On a random side note, I would love to go to grad school here.....

CalTech library

Spanish Architecture is used all over the CalTech campus.

Us girls!: in front of the 'double helix' pool

CalTech Pond: filled full of turtles!

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Videoconferencing and Web 2.0 Projects

Grade: K-12

Subject: All subjects

Any of the preceding templates can be enhanced and extended with Web 2.0 tools such as blogs, wikis, collaborative document sharing tools, and podcasts.

Blogs

• Students write responses to their reading on a shared blog and give feedback to each other via the comments. The culminating videoconference connects students together to discuss the book or with an author or specialist related to the book.
  See http://stovall.notlong.com for an example.
• Students collaboratively write a story using a blog or discussion tool for writing or sharing ideas before writing. The videoconference culminates in the presentation of the story. See http://blogvc.notlong.com for an example.

Collaborative Document Creation &Wikis
Collaborative document creation tools can be used to have students work in groups across sites to develop solutions, poetry, graphs, presentations, essays and more. The videoconference is used to set the stage for the collaborative work and to culminate when the task is completed.

• Thumbstacks.com (presentations)
• Docs.google.com (word processing and spreadsheets)
• Gliffy.com (brainstorming)
• PBWiki.com (word processing plus web pages)
• Wikispaces  (word processing plus web pages)

Podcast

• Classes exchange podcasts on a topic and then videoconference to discuss.
• Or classes create podcasts reporting on their VC.

Contact:Janine Lim

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